Hell in a Handbasket: Rose Gardner Investigations #3 Page 5

  “Most PIs get paid by the hour,” Neely Kate pressed.

  “I’ll make it three thousand,” Patsy said. “Let me know when you find out something.” Then she hung up.

  “You still believe her?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I still do. Besides, whether she did it or not, we’re each gettin’ a thousand dollars.”

  I considered telling her that I doubted Patsy Sue would pay up if we found her guilty, but Neely Kate seemed dead set on working this case. Nothing was going to change her mind at this point. Given my guilt over Jeanne, I was surprised that I was open to it, but maybe this was exactly what I needed to get over it. “That’s Kermit’s money.”

  “And he’ll get a thousand of it. We’re doin’ the work, so it stands to reason we should get paid.”

  “Huh.” I took the turnoff to my farm. When I pulled to a stop in front of the house, I was surprised Muffy wasn’t in the front window, waiting for us. I found her in the kitchen, barking out the back window. A family of squirrels had been tormenting her over the past week, and she was obviously eager to make yet another futile attempt to catch them. I opened the back door, and she made a beeline for the barn.

  “What’s got Muffy so excited?” Neely Kate asked as she walked into the kitchen with a new notebook. This one was covered in gold sparkles.

  “The squirrels, I guess.” But something didn’t seem right. She’d gotten pretty upset a month or so ago when Raddy Dyer had been hiding in the barn. I ignored the flutter in my chest when I remembered that James had been out there too. What if he was waiting for me out there now? “I’m gonna go watch her. She’s awfully close to the woods and it’s starting to get dark. I don’t want her to get lost.”

  “Okay. My phone still works even with the cracked screen. I’ll call Bill and let you know what he says.”

  “Sounds good.” I headed for the door to the living room.

  She looked up in surprise. “Why are you goin’ that way?”

  “I need to pee first,” I lied, then let the swinging door close behind me. I grabbed my Taser from my bag before heading out the front door.

  The sun was about to set, but a crescent moon was out, lighting my path across the open field to the barn. As I got close, I heard Muffy snarling. I’d been down this path before, but it wasn’t any less scary this time.

  One of the large double barn doors was slightly ajar, and I almost called Joe, but he was already busy with Carol Ann’s death. Besides, as crazy as it was, I wanted to see who was in the barn before bringing anyone else into the situation.

  I moved away from the doors and called out, “Who’s in there?” When there was no answer, I said, “I’m gonna call the sheriff if you don’t announce yourself.”

  “Wait!” I heard a guy call out. “Don’t call ’em!”

  My heartbeat picked up. I didn’t recognize the voice. “Who are you and what do you want?”

  “My name’s Marshall Billings, ma’am. I only wanted to talk to you.”

  “Then what are you doin’ skulkin’ around in my barn, Marshall Billings, instead of waiting on my front door?”

  “I didn’t know when you were gonna be home, and I didn’t want to bleed all over your porch.”

  That stole my breath. Why had a bleeding stranger showed up in my barn? But in my gut, I already knew. He wasn’t here to talk to Rose Gardner. He was here to talk to the Lady in Black. “Do you have a gun?”

  “Yes, ma’am, but I swear to God I won’t use it on you. I’ve only got it to protect myself.”

  Call me foolish, but I believed him. “Okay, I’m alone, and I’m coming in. Fair warning, if you’ve hurt my dog, you’re gonna regret stepping foot on my land.” When he didn’t respond, I walked over to the double doors and pushed the unlocked side open enough to slip through the crack.

  The barn was pitch dark, so I said, “I’m gonna turn on a light so we can see each other.”

  “Okay,” he said in a shaky voice.

  I walked over to the cabinets on the right and flipped on a light over the work station, keeping my eye on the center of the room. Muffy, who’d followed me in, let out a quick growl.

  My little dog had the guy cornered, although it didn’t look like he was going anywhere based on the bloody towel wrapped around the right thigh of his dirty jeans. He was sitting on the floor with his legs outstretched. He looked young—late teens or early twenties—and terrified.

  Seeing the blood-soaked towel made the hair on my arms stand up, and anxiety washed through me like a rolling tide. Get a grip, Rose. I’d seen so much worse than this. I could handle it.

  “What happened?” I asked as I slowly moved closer. His gun lay on the dirt floor next to him, but it was close enough to reach. I’d been around enough scared animals to know they lashed out when they felt cornered. He might not be a threat, but he could become one.

  “I got shot.”

  “By who?”

  He pressed his lips together and gave a slight shake of his head.

  “Why’d you come to me?” I asked.

  He looked surprised. “You’re the Lady in Black, ain’t ya?” Then he looked uncertain and even more scared.

  I saw no reason to deny it. “Yeah,” I said softly. “That’s me.” Or rather, my alter ego—the woman who’d started working with James last November out of desperation. I’d needed help to protect my then-boyfriend, assistant DA Mason Deveraux, and James had needed my visions to help him ferret out turncoats. Win-win. Then the whole J.R. business had gone down, and I’d retired the Lady in Black . . . until last month. I’d resurrected her to help make peace in the underworld.

  “Can you help me?” he asked.

  “I take it you don’t want to go to the hospital?”

  “No. I can’t. They’ll tell the sheriff.”

  It was obvious he needed medical attention. The question was who to call for help. “Who do you work for?” I asked. “And why didn’t you go to them?”

  “I don’t work for no one,” he spat out angrily. “Not anymore.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Then who did you used to work for, because that’ll make a difference in who I call.”

  “You can’t call Skeeter Malcolm,” he said, his eyes wide in panic. “I heard that you’re neutral. Is that true?”

  “Yeah. I’m neutral,” I said, and my heart sank. If he was hiding from James, this was bound to stir up trouble between us. “It’s a little late to be asking that now, isn’t it?”

  He stared at me wide-eyed. Now that I was closer, I could see that he looked even younger than I’d first thought.

  “How old are you, Marshall?”

  “Eighteen.”

  I had serious doubts about that. “I’m gonna call Tim Dermot. Are you good with him?”

  “He works for Buck Reynolds. Buck don’t like me neither.”

  How had this kid made the bad list of the two top criminals in Fenton County? I knew I should be more worried about being alone with him, but he didn’t look dangerous at the moment. He only looked scared. “There was a change of guard. Dermot’s in charge now and he’s a nurse.” The kid didn’t try to stop me, so I pulled up Dermot’s number and he answered quickly.

  “Lady. I’m surprised to hear from you.”

  “I have a medical situation I need your help with.”

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, sounding concerned.

  “Not me. Someone else, but I can’t take him to the hospital.”

  “Malcolm?” he asked in surprise.

  “No. Someone else.” I considered telling him Marshall’s name, but decided to wait until he got here. For all I knew, Buck and James weren’t the only people the kid had pissed off. “I found him hiding in my barn looking for the Lady in Black. He has a gunshot wound in his leg and refuses to go to the hospital.”

  He was silent for a moment, then said, “Have you stopped the blood flow?”

  I glanced down at the kid’s leg. “He has a towel wrapped around it. I haven’t checked.”r />
  “It’s not bleeding through the towel?”

  “It’s bloody, but I don’t think it’s bleeding through.”

  “Try to get him into your house without taking the bandage off. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Don’t you need my address?”

  “I already know it,” he said before he hung up.

  Did the whole county know where I lived? But I had more immediate issues. “Dermot’s going to help. He wants me to move you to my house. Are you good with that?”

  Worry filled his eyes. “I hear your farm is like Sweden.”

  “Sweden?” What? Then I realized what he meant. “You mean Switzerland?”

  “Yeah, one of those places.”

  I shook my head. This was news to me, but I’d touted myself as neutral back at the parley I’d set up for Buck Reynolds and James a month ago—an impression I’d done my best to reinforce. It stood to reason my land would be considered neutral too. The real question was if all the criminals would honor that. I wasn’t sure being in the thick of the Fenton County crime world was smart, but I’d jumped in headlong a month ago.

  I was still confused about where the boy in front of me fit into the Fenton County criminal world, but we’d sort that out later. “Can you walk?” Then a new thought occurred to me. “How’d you get here, anyway?”

  “I had a friend drop me off.” He tried to get to his feet, then let out a loud cry of pain and fell back to the floor.

  “I have another idea.” I called Neely Kate.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Why do you think something’s wrong?”

  “Why else would you be calling me from just outside the house?”

  “Actually, I’m in the barn, and I have a situation.”

  “Who’s out there this time?” she asked.

  It was a logical conclusion. “His name’s Marshall Billings, and he has a gunshot wound in his leg. Dermot is on his way to fix him up.”

  “Dermot?”

  I knew it was a lot to take in at once. “I don’t think he can walk, so I need you to drive my truck back here. We can put him in the back and haul him down to the house.”

  “On it.” I knew I’d have plenty of explaining to do later, but she hung up.

  Marshall didn’t look convinced this was a solid plan, but he kept quiet as he watched me. “Are you gonna turn me in?” he asked. “I know you’re friendly with the chief deputy sheriff.”

  “I don’t even know what you did,” I said. “So what would I turn you in for?”

  He gave me a tight nod, not volunteering any information.

  “I’m gonna need you to push that gun away from you,” I said. “Out of reach. I don’t have a weapon, and I’d feel a lot better about helpin’ you if I wasn’t worried about getting shot.”

  He looked surprised, but he shoved the gun away willingly enough. Then, as though exhausted from the minimal effort, he leaned his back against the wall and closed his eyes.

  So many questions floated through my head. “What made you think to come here?”

  He opened his eyes to a squint. “Everyone’s talkin’ about the Lady in Black. How you brought down J.R. Simmons and brokered a peace between Skeeter and Buck. I figured you were my only hope.”

  I heard the truck engine roar to life, and Muffy turned her attention to the barn doors. I swung the already-ajar door open wider and then walked back toward Marshall, trying to figure out how to get him on his feet.

  “You’re not what I expected,” he said, watching me.

  “And what did you expect?”

  “Someone tougher. Meaner.”

  My truck headlights bounced on the field between my house and the barn as the truck got closer.

  “Well, you can’t always believe what you hear,” I said, although what he’d heard sounded pretty accurate.

  “A lot of guys are nervous about you,” he said.

  “Why?” I asked. “Because they think I work for Skeeter Malcolm?”

  “No, because it looks like you don’t.”

  That surprised me—first, that they finally believed I was neutral, and second, that it made them nervous.

  Neely Kate made a U-turn and then backed up so that the tailgate was close to the barn door. The driver’s door opened, and she was out in a flash.

  “Where is he?”

  I gestured to the back corner of the barn. “Neely Kate, meet Marshall. Marshall, Neely Kate.”

  Neely Kate gave him a perplexed look. “How’d you end up here?”

  “I was looking for the Lady in Black.”

  Neely Kate’s mouth dropped open. The fact that our address was so widely known had clearly caught her off guard too, but that was a conversation for later.

  We quickly got him up on his one good leg, an arm over each of our shoulders, and helped him hobble to the truck bed. He cried out when we hauled him up and slid him back enough so his legs weren’t hanging over the tailgate. I stayed in the back with him while Neely Kate drove to the house, pulling up to the back door.

  When she emerged from the truck, she said, “There are fewer steps back here, and I figured we could put him on the kitchen table.”

  I hadn’t thought of either of those things. “Good idea.”

  I hopped down, and after some maneuvering, we got Marshall down from the truck and up the steps into the kitchen.

  He leaned on my shoulder while Neely Kate hastened to clear off the table. We had just gotten him positioned on top of it when I heard a knock at the front door.

  “I’ll get it,” Neely Kate said. “I’m gonna go grab some towels anyway.”

  Marshall’s face was covered with sweat, and his shirt was pretty damp. All the jostling must have irritated his wound because his towel was soaked with more blood than it had been before.

  My anxiety shot up again, catching me off guard and making me feel panicky and out of control. But I told myself I didn’t have time to dwell on it. I needed to attend to Marshall.

  “I’m gonna get you a drink of water,” I said, worried about dehydration. He’d lost an awful lot of blood and he was starting to shake.

  “Hold off on that,” Dermot said as he walked through the swinging kitchen door.

  I spun around to face him, relief washing through me. “Thanks for comin’.”

  He gave me a tight grin as he pulled out a kitchen chair and set his black bag on it. “I can’t turn down a request from Lady.”

  He could and we both knew it. “Well, thanks anyway. We just got him settled on the table. All the jostling around made his wound start bleeding more. Neely Kate went to get some clean towels.”

  “Good thinking,” Dermot said, looking the boy over. “Do I know you?”

  Marshall watched Dermot with fear-filled eyes. “No, sir.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Marshall, sir.”

  I noticed he didn’t offer his last name this time. Was it a purposeful omission?

  “What are you doin’ at Lady’s farm, Marshall?”

  “Lookin’ for Sweden,” he said, his voice growing faint. His face was pale, and his eyes started to close.

  “Sweden?” Dermot asked absently as he pulled on a pair of gloves before he took an IV pouch and tubing out of his black bag.

  “He means Switzerland,” I said, getting really worried. “Is he going to be okay?”

  “We’re about to find out, but I want to start an IV first.” He looked up at me. “I’m gonna need your help.”

  “I’m not a nurse, Dermot.”

  Dermot held my gaze. “And I’m not a doctor, but we’re both gonna do what we need to do to save this boy. Together.”

  Chapter 5

  “Yeah.” I nodded, feeling sick to my stomach as Dermot scrubbed Marshall’s wrist with an alcohol wipe and slid a needle into his vein. The out-of-control feeling was back, and I swallowed my apprehension.

  “We need something taller than the table to set this IV bag on,
” he said as he taped the needle to Marshall’s skin. I pointed wordlessly to the high-backed chair at the head of the table, and he taped the bag to the back of it.

  Next he grabbed a vial and a syringe out of his bag and injected something into the kid’s IV. “Morphine,” he said, looking up at me as he tossed the syringe into the kitchen sink. “Let’s hope it works.”

  “I’ve got ’em,” Neely Kate said as she burst into the room with an armful of fresh towels.

  “Just in time,” Dermot said as he pulled a pair of scissors out of his bag. “I’m about to cut his jeans open and get a look at the wound. I have a feeling I’m gonna need a few of those. Neely Kate, drop that load on that counter and bring a couple of those over here.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a couple of gloves. “Which one of you is stronger?”

  Neely Kate and I both looked at each other.

  I said, “Neely Kate” as she said, “Me.”

  “Okay, Rose, you put these on. You’re my surgical assistant. Neely Kate, your job is to help hold him down. Lay on him if you have to.”

  “Okay.” She sounded nervous.

  I quickly donned the gloves as Neely Kate put two folded towels on top of Marshall’s stomach.

  Dermot started with the uninjured leg and cut his pants all the way up to the waistband. Then he switched to the other leg, cutting the material until he reached the wrapped towel, which was now completely soaked with blood. “Neely Kate. I’m gonna need a big bucket or bowl.”

  “I can get the mop bucket, but it’s not clean.”

  “That’s okay,” Dermot said, wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his forearm. “We’re gonna use it for bloody towels. Marshall’s already inconvenienced you ladies enough without causing any more mess than necessary.”

  Neely Kate quickly ran into the broom closet and returned with the bucket.

  “Set it on Rose’s left side,” Dermot said.

  “Okay.” She set the bucket next to me, casting a terrified glance up at me as she rose. Right or wrong, I felt better knowing we both felt out of our league, but my anxiety was mushrooming, and I knew it had nothing to do with the roles we’d be forced to assume and everything to do with the large amount of blood.